If it hadn't been for a throw away line from Sir John Rose, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce the imminent meeting of the Conquistadores del Cielo might have taken place under its customary cloak of secrecy.
But Sir John, one of the lowest profile personalities in aerospace, uncharacteristically mentioned his industry's most publicity shy gathering of leaders in an interview in a British newspaper.
Now the little town of Encampment, Wyoming is braced for the arrival of the much feared British paparazzo, intent on recording the goings-on at the sprawling 140,000 acre A-Bar-A dude ranch.
Will they turn up? No one is really sure, but the self styled "conquerors of the sky" will, and they have much to be quiet about this year.
They are going broke.
In terms of collective losses the major airlines are down more than US$10 billion this year and there are decidedly mixed results for the makers of jets, whether civil or military or private, and jet engines, where Sir John's enterprise has dazzled the market with profits his competitors would envy.
Macho, macho men
The macho men of the Conquista-dores del Cielo rarely break their vows of silence. Outside the US, where airline and aerospace chief executive officers declare their membership to investors, it is almost impossible to get other airways' partners to acknowledge their participation.
Perhaps it is embarrassment at the thought of being exposed in pink frocks on horse back, or dressed up like the Village People singing the order's song:
"We're Conquistadores, gay Conquistadores; We're birds of a very fine feather, We're happy amigos."
The evidence of such shenanigans is archived in a little known collection of the society's papers in the Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
In an exceedingly rare interview on the meetings published by Fortune magazine, Gordon Bethune, chairman of Continental Airlines, says "It's a boy's club. You fly fish, play tennis. They do rodeos, ride horses, drink too much, ride horses, drink too much. Did I mention drinking? It's kind of fun."
Top brass
Conquistadores del Cielo was founded in 1937, and its ranks include the top brass in the US Air Force, men who have walked on the moon and living heroes from the ranks of test pilots and combat veterans.
Until a few years ago it had been assumed it was essentially a trans-Atlantic club. Not only did it not admit women but, conspicuously, there was no evidence of much representation from Asia, Africa, or the former eastern bloc.
However, in September last year the chairman of Korean Air, Cho Yang-ho broke all the rules by issuing a press release saying he was attending.
In fact he said the participants "will discuss recent trends and developments in the international aviation industry at the meeting."
This misunderstanding of the purely social agenda of the Conquistadores did not go down especially well in the US industry.
American Conquistadores are mindful of avoiding any conceivable hint that they might turn a perfectly brotherly bonding session of fishing, hunting, drinking, singing, drinking and horse riding under frontier skies into anything that could remotely offend any of the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust act, or several library shelves of related law on anti-competitive activity.
It is a mere 18 years since the Paul Thayer "scandal."
Thayer, a long standing member, was the first pilot to break the sound barrier in a production US Navy fighter, and survivor of seven crashes, four in combat and three as a test pilot. But according to documents filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 1984, it is alleged that he discussed at Conquistadores 1982 a takeover battle for Bendix Corp which was eventually won by Allied Corp, of which he was a director.
The pentagon connection
Thayer subsequently became former president Ronald Reagan's No. 2 man in the Pentagon as deputy defense secretary, but was forced to resign in 1984 in advance of a threatened prosecution for insider trading.
In 1985 he began serving 19 months of a four-year sentence negotiated through plea bargaining. According to the documents, two Conquistadores who attended the 1982 meeting and were members of companies who unsuccessfully tried to buy Bendix were prepared to testify to the insider information given by Thayer.
Since that withering encounter with the spotlight of publicity, the Conquistadores have returned to the anonymity and brotherhood of the Wyoming wilderness. Thayer even flew a vintage aircraft over the gathering in 2000, the year before diminishing eye sight forced him to hang up his goggles.
Even if this year's party is raucous, the participants will be hoping they don't attract much attention.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS